Monday, June 29, 2015

NYC presses ban on smoking in home: 'Everyone benefits from smoke-free housing'

Can you say nanny-state?

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is proposing a new rule to ban cigarette smoking in residents' homes.

The administration is going to offer four different health-advocacy groups $9,000 each to start exerting pressure on developers and landlords to implement the bans. The logic is secondhand smoke kills and smoke from one apartment can drift into another, the New York Post reported.

So far, the initiative is voluntary – but that could soon change.

"Everyone benefits from smoke-free housing," one spokesman for the city's Department of Health said, the newspaper reported. "Residents enjoy breathing cleaner, healthier air in their homes ... while owners see reductions in property damage and turnover costs."

Smokers are already barred from lighting up in public places in the city, including bars and restaurants, places of work and parks and sports facilities.

The residential smoking ban was an idea born by the previous city administration, under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the New York Post reported.



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